End of the Year Survey | Because I Read A Lot of Books And Apparently You’re Interested in That

It’s almost the end of 2016, blogglings, which means it’s time to write the post chronicling what I did this past year.

I’ve seen people do The Perpetual Page Turner’s End of Year Survey before, but I’ve never participated in it myself. Not necessarily because I haven’t wanted to do it, and more because I’ve always written my end of year wrap up sometime before Christmas and just scheduled it to be a few days before the 31st. This year, however, my schedule went out the window and I didn’t have one scheduled in advance. So I’m joining in!

-Number Of Books I Read: I really should keep track of this, but I don’t, and so I’m going to take a guess and say…200? Around? I know my book collection grew massively in size this year, but I haven’t read every single book I’ve gotten so I can’t exactly go off that.

-Number of Books I Reread: Same problem as above. Again, I’m going to take a guess and say maybe a quarter of all the books I read were rereads.

-Most Read Genre of 2016: Contemporary. Which is funny, because contemporary books aren’t the first genre I reach for, but when I think back on it, so many were contemporary. So many. What’s with the lack of fantasy books, 2016?

-Best Book I Read in 2016: HARD QUESTION, THIS. So I’m gonna list off five. I adored The Raven King, Six of Crows, The Lost & Found, The Female of the Species, and Furiously Happy.

-Book I Was Excited About and Thought I Was Going To Like But Didn’t: *furiously gestures at The Diabolic in frustration*

-Most Surprising (in a good or bad way) Book I Read: I was in no way expecting the amazingness that was The Female of the Species. I mean, I loved Not a Drop to Drink, but I wasn’t a huge fan of it’s sequel or A Madness so Discrete, so I went into Female with low expectations. Which were then blown out of the water.

-Book I “Pushed” The Most People to Read: Probably either The Accident Season or Illuminae.

-Best Series I Started in 2016, Best Sequel of 2016, and Best Series Ender of 2016: The best series I started in 2016 was probably the Darkest Minds series. The best sequel was probably The Swan Riders, and the best series ender was Crooked Kingdom. (Does a duology count as a series?)

-Favorite New Author I Discovered in 2016:Victoria Schwab. I can’t believe I haven’t read her stuff before now. Seriously, she’s amazing.

-Best Book From a Genre I Don’t Typically Read: I tend to find historical fiction to be somewhat boring, but I really enjoyed Walk on Earth a Stranger. Possibly because of it’s magical twist.

-Most Action-Packed Book of 2016: This Savage Song was thrilling and stabby and bleedy and I wholeheartedly enjoyed it.

-Book I Read in 2016 That I’m Most Likely to Reread Next Year: I still don’t really know how I feel about Furthermore, and I’m actively planning to reread it so I can get more in depth about how I feel with it.

-Favorite Cover of a Book I Read in 2016: I am head over heels in love with the cover for Rebel of the Sands. The original ones. Not the horrible new ones that they for some reason thought was a good idea.

-Most Memorable Character of 2016: Shahrazad from The Wrath & The Dawn is so amazing. I mean, she literally married a man who in all likelyhood would murder her so she could get a chance to murder him. Epic.

-Most Beautifully Written Book of 2016: Although it sometimes felt like The Star-Touched Queen was drowning in the prose, it was still extremely beautiful (even if I didn’t really like it).

-Most Thought-Provoking Book I Read in 2016: The entire time I was reading Asking For It I felt sick to my stomach.

-Book I Can’t Believe I Waited ‘Til 2016 to Read: I DON’T KNOW WHY I DIDN’T READ YOU, THE ARCHIVED, BUT DANG IT I LOVED YOU.

-Favorite Quote From a Book You Read in 2016: “I was a closed book, a rolled map, a dark territory uncharted; I was surprised by my urgency, but after all, to be known was to exist.”- From The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

-Shortest and Longest Book I Read in 2016: The shortest book was Kindred Spirits, and the longest book was Gemina.

-Book That Shocked Me the Most: I was not expecting the cliffhanger that was at the end of The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer.

-OTP of the Year: I adore Lara Jean and Peter way more than I thought I would. Seriously, they’re totally adorable.

-Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship of the Year: It’s sad how long it took me to think of one. But I’m going to say August and Kate from This Savage Song, because A) The author herself refers to it as a star-crossed frienship, which is a glorious term that I’ll be using, B) they balance each other out SO NICELY, and C) MALE FEMALE FRIENDSHIP THAT WON’T TURN ROMANTIC. Bless Victoria Schwab.

-Favorite Book You Read in 2016 From an Author You’ve Read Previously: Blood For Blood wasn’t as good as Wolf By Wolf, but it was still pretty great.

– Book You Read in 2016 Based Solely On Peer Pressure: Hello, Six of Crows, who I almost didn’t read because I’m stubborn and everyone was telling me to read it.

-Newest Fictional Crush from a Book You’ve Read in 2016: Clark from The Unexpected Everything is a geeky homeschooled writer who likes dogs. August from This Savage Song because he is an anxious, easily overwhelmed sweetheart of a soul-eating monster, and Helena from A Torch Against the Night, because she’s badass.

-Best 2016 Debut I Read: While I didn’t LOVE The Mystery of Hollow Places, I very much enjoyed it. Also, I can only think of like ten debuts right now and this was the only one I really liked.

–Most Vivid Setting I Read This Year: The world from Rebel of the Sands is incredible and so detailed and you can really see it as it’s described.

–A Book That Put a Smile on My Face: Hello, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, who houses the cutest, sweetest protagonist I’ve ever met. And the whole book is just overall fluffy and cute and totally not something I’d normally read but am super glad I did.

–Book That Made Me Cry: Half Lost made me shed a couple of tears, BECAUSE MY POOR ADORABLE TORTURED ANTIHERO THAT IS NATHAN.

–Hidden Gem of the Year: Why are more people not talking about Tattoo Atlas? It seems like the kind of book that would explode as soon as it came out but it just hasn’t.

–Book That Crushed My Soul: I didn’t need my heart that badly, Between Shades of Gray.

–Most Unique Book of 2016: That honor goes to Futhermore. That book was…weird. Nonsensical and fantastical and very, very weird.

–Book That Made Me Mad: Finding Audrey was a comedy about mental illness. And, yes, comedies about mental illness can be done well, but this one wasn’t. This one felt mocking, and it played into the “love cures mental illness” trope that totally isn’t true and makes me mad.

–New Favorite Book Blog I Discovered in 2016: I’ve been just kind of quietly reading Emily at Loony Literate’s posts since around January, but I only started commenting recently. But she’s super nice and we share a lot of the same tastes in books.

–Favorite Review I Wrote in 2016: It might not be my best review, but I probably enjoyed writing my This Savage Song review the most. And apparently other people agree, because I won an award for it at my library? And got books? Which was cool. Still not quite sure why because there were typos in it when I submitted it.

–Best Bookish Event I Participated In: I got to go to YallWest and it was the coolest thing! It was amazing to be at an event thrown for and by book lovers, and I got to meet other book bloggers and bookstagrammers and authors and I loved it. There needs to be more events like it.

–Best Moment of Bookish/Blogging Life: Again, I have to say YallWest, and the really awesome conversations I had. For a city that’s known to have really awesome bookstores, I don’t really meet a lot of readers.

–Most Challenging Part of Bookish/Blogging Life: The lack of time. I’ve had the busiest year in a long time, which means that my blog and my books tended to get kind of forgotten. Next year, though, I’m going to be all about scheduling, so hopefully it will be better.

–Post I Wish Got a Little More Love: My recipe for Scarlet’s Lemon Cake is probably my favorite recipe I’ve done on this blog, but it got barely any views and comments, which was sad.

–Best New Bookish Discovery: I had no idea Book Depository was a thing until this year, and I’m obsessed with it.

–Did I Complete Any Reading/Blogging Goals I Set For Myself: If I set any I can’t remember setting them, so possibly?

–One Book I Didn’t Get To in 2016 But Is My Priority in 2017: Still haven’t read Radio Silence yet, despite the fact that I was so excited about it, and was going to order it off Book Depository so I could read it. Did I? NOPE.

–Non-Debut Book I’m Most Anticipating in 2016: I’m going to list five again. Flame in the Mist, Always and Forever, Lara Jean, Our Dark Duet, Traitor to the Throne, and The Upside of Unrequited.

–2017 Debut I’m Most Anticipating: Five more: Caraval, City of Saints & Thieves, The Hate U Give, Daughter of the Pirate King, and When Dimple Met Rishi.

–A Series Ending/Sequel I’m Most Anticipating: Not counting the sequels I’ve already listed above, I’m going to say Avenged (the sequel to Ruined).

–One Thing I Hope to Accomplish in My Reading/Blogging Life in 2017: I’m breaking the rules and posting several. I want to post more frequently. I want to get out there more, instead of just blogging and kind of doing my own thing. And I want to post actual reviews more.

–A 2017 Release I’ve Already Read and Want to Recommend to Everyone: I was lucky enough to get my hands on an ARC of A List of Cages, and I adored it. It’s amazing, and you should totally read it when it comes out.

So, blogglings, how was your 2016, bookish/blogging wise? What are your goals for next year?

3 thoughts on “End of the Year Survey | Because I Read A Lot of Books And Apparently You’re Interested in That”

THE RAVEN KING WAS DEFINITELY IN MY TOP FIVE AS WELL. I’d had a tenuous relationship with The Raven Cycle up until that point, but reading that book definitely cemented my liking for the series.

YOUR DIVERSE FANTASY POST WAS MY LIFE. And I’ve been wanting to get my hands on A Darker Shade of Magic for quite a while, but do you think This Savage Song would offer a better introduction to V.E. Schwab’s works? Or is ADSOF best for that?

People either seem to be somewhat iffy about TRC or totally adore it from the first book, but I’ve never met someone who just liked it or hated it. Funny how things like that work.

I tend to tell people to start with either This Savage Song or Vicious. ADSOM is her most popular, by far, but (at least with me) it took a little while to get into it, and I think sometimes it’s easier to get invested in books if you’re already familiar with the author and their writing style.